


Preten(d)ses

by screamlet



Category: A Bit of Fry and Laurie RPF, Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, British Comedy RPF
Genre: Complicated Relationships, GAYS PAYING TRIBUTE AT OSCAR WILDE'S GRAVE, Gen, POV First Person, the one with g.b. shaw's arms and the man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer 1993: Hugh treats Stephen to a weekend in Paris for his birthday. There's sightseeing and existential crises. (Hugh POV)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preten(d)ses

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Notatracer

"I'm sorry, have I asked you this six dozen times already?" Stephen asked. "Do you mind if I have a smoke?"

"No, really, it's fine, please, go ahead, I don't mind!" the news-interviewer-editor-reporter person bubbled.

"Speaking of sixes," I said, "Do you have any?" The news-etc. person looked confused, then remembered the cards in his hand. There was some more incoherent babbling that ended in a "Go fish", so I did. As Stephen lit his cigarette, I said, "Jeeves, did your first in Gentlemen's Personal Gentlemanning at Hull not cover the proper etiquette in smoking with one's betters?"

I held out the cigarette holder as Stephen elaborately placed a cigarette in it, lit the thing, and looked back to his cards. I puffed a few times and resisted the urge to blow smoke rings, since it made me look like a total arse each and every time. Also, it was very ungentlemanly. Probably. Who cares?

"This is the closest we come to 'character building exercises'," I said from the corner of my mouth. "I order Stephen around, and he quietly subverts my every move until I've done something fantastic that very much does him credit."

"Sir disparages his own natural qualities of intelligence and breeding far too much," Stephen said with a note of boredom in his voice.

"That's hilarious," said the news-etc. person with not much enthusiasm to back the statement. He looked at his watch briefly, and did a very bad double-take. "I'm so sorry! I was supposed to be back at the office fifteen minutes ago!"

I must get to the point of this early afternoon, post-lunch pre-nap scene in the trailer, so I'll skip over all the urgings to stay, offers to murder his supervisor, and other niceties. Eventually the little twerp left and I took off my suit jacket so I could lie on the couch.

"Dearest," Stephen said after a few moments, "I feel I should say that next time someone harasses you for the details of your life, don't tell them your son was an accident. They probably won't see the irony."

"There was irony?"

"That's hilarious."

"I could tell from your raucous laughter." I opened my eyes and looked at Stephen smoking at the table, our hands of cards abandoned for the moment. "Are you bored?"

"Slightly. I should be reading, writing, arithmeticing, or any number of things, but I'm also lazy."

"Yes, well, don't be bored or lazy the weekend before your birthday."

Without looking, I could tell he had taken a few seconds to blink emphatically before asking, "And why on earth not?" Another moment, followed by, "Oh no. No no no no, Hugh, don't. No. Don't you _dare_."

"Don't what?" I asked.

"Don't throw me a surprise party."

"Wouldn't dream of it. They're terrible things. I loathe them."

"So do I... so don't throw me one."

"I wasn't going to throw you anything."

"Then why did you throw in that cryptic little remark about my birthday?"

"Because I can't remember the date of the weekend before it. I rounded up, you see. Or back. I want to do something that weekend. Possibly with you."

"Don't throw me a party."

"Certainly won't."

"Don't _let_ anyone throw me a party."

"I'll become the personal thought police of London, just for you and your aversion to parties."

"And Norfolk."

"Of course."

* * *

  
[Again, for the sake of moving this narrative along swiftly, I'll skip to mid-August. You didn't miss anything, except Stephen showing his hatred of surprise parties in a number of uncreative ways straight out of an episode of _The Dick Van Dyke Show_. Actually, he went a step further and quietly organized a surprise party for the director's birthday, just so we could stand near the back and he could whisper, "How embarrassing. I _loathe_ surprise parties." Dedication? I think so.]

* * *

  
"It's five-thirty in the morning. What the _fuck_ are you doing up? More importantly, what the fuck are you doing up and _ringing my doorbell_?"

"Let me in and I'll _tell you_!" I sang into the phone. Stephen's doorman eyed me, and I finally acknowledged him with a wide, stupid grin back. "Don't worry, Barty, I'll be out of your hair in just a mo'." Access so granted, I ran into the lift, dragging two rolling suitcases behind me.

When I reached Stephen's flat on the third floor, the door was open and he was glaring at me with all the fondness and affection I deserved. Seeing my usual demeanour of sweetness and light, he let me in, the glare even more intense than usual.

"What the fuck?"

"We're going on a trip!"

"Voices, am I speaking to Hugh, or to Matilda, the Belgian exotic dancer?"

I rambled off some restaurant French and dashed off to his room with the empty suitcase.

"You can't _do_ this!" Stephen was saying from the kitchen. "I have too much to do this weekend. My parents are coming into town... all right, not until next week, but I need to prepare for that. Emotionally. For a week. Do the Jo's know about this? If they don't, they're going to rip out your throat and slaughter your children."

"Where have all your socks gone?" I called back. "How long has it been since you've done your laundry? There's breakfast in my suitcase, so don't make anything."

"And how appetizing something stored in your _suitcase_ must be first thing in the morning."

I came back into the kitchen, having thrown in as much clean clothes as I could find into the suitcase and zipped it back up. "You'll have to buy socks in Paris, I'm afraid."

Stephen stared at me with some disbelief. Not an overwhelming amount, but just enough for the situation.

"Pa-where? It sounded like Paris, but I think that must have been the morning breeze interfering with the flapping of your arsecheeks."

"It's not a party," I said clearly, unzipping my suitcase with some admittedly unappetizing muffins wrapped in aluminium. "You said no parties, and this is no party."

"I'm going to need a drink before you explain, and before I kill you."

"Get me one, too, but make it quick. The cab is waiting outside, and you need to get dressed and find your passport."

He went over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of vodka and two glasses. We toasted to my insanity, clinked glasses, and drank. It chilled and warmed me all at once, and there was a pleasant cloud condensing about my head, thanks to the complete lack of breakfast.

Sooner than I realized, Stephen was dressed and holding his passport and several pairs of socks. "You completely missed the sock drawer in my writing desk."

"Of course, how stupid of me," I said as I kneeled by the suitcase, shoving the socks inside.

"Now." I looked at Stephen, and he seemed much more himself (and much less the man-eating psychopath of ten minutes before). "What's this about Paris? Is it your code name for Southampton or Wales?"

"No, sir. Real, honest to Frenchness Paris." There was a loud buzz around the apartment, which had to be our cue to head downstairs and to the airport. "Anything else we'll need?"

"Nothing that'll be allowed through customs."

"Then let's go."

* * *

  
I fell asleep in business class and woke to Stephen staring at me (still in business class). I rubbed my eyes and asked, "What?"

"Just thinking about how insane you are."

"Thanks."

"Do you remember the last time we were drunk beyond reckoning?"

"No. But then again, we were -- "

"Don't be a smart arse. Point is, I don't know if you've noticed, but you get very introspective when you're on substances of all sorts, and you asked me why people love you."

"This has to be breaking one of the alcoholic's commandments." I looked around for a complimentary water bottle to nurse me back to life.

"You're one of those Hallmark husbands and friends, Hugh, much as you hate to admit it."

"I haven't admitted it; you've accused me of it."

"Just look at this! Taking a friend to Paris out of the blue; seeing a toy in a shop window that you know one of the kids would love and buying it on the spot without their asking; randomly taking your wife to that movie she wanted to see..."

"Leave me alone. I believe in retail therapy."

"Call it what you want." Stephen waved down the flight attendant, then looked at me and said, "Thank you," as sincerely as he could. A bottle of water eventually made its way into my hand, but not soon enough to deter the taste of repressed vomit in my mouth.

* * *

  
I slept some more and pushed out of my mind that particular snippet of plane conversation once we were actually in Paris. I called the family from the hotel lobby, assured them I'd be back Sunday afternoon, and went up to the adjacent rooms I had booked in May for Stephen and myself. They overlooked some river or canal that it was important for an expensive hotel room to overlook. Stephen was quite taken with it all.

"This is the first time I've been in Paris for pleasure."

"I do, actually," I said. "I can't remember exactly what made me think of doing this for your birthday, but it was probably that. Oh, and the fact that I've never been here."

His neck almost snapped in its rush to hurtle incredulity at my face. " _What_?"

"Never been."

"Thirty-four years on earth and you haven't been to Paris? That has to be some kind of crime against humanity."

I rolled my eyes and sighed. "Well, my part is done. I got us here, now you have to lead me around and make sure I see everything I have to see so when we're back in London, I can be The Obnoxious Tourist."

"In that case, let's go eat something disgusting and leave the chef a note detailing its faults. In German." He smiled and added, "I'd feel better about myself if we managed to start World War III this weekend."

* * *

  
Three epic meals later, we were walking off our sauce-drenched breakfast in Pére Lachaise. We went in circles, stumbling on Proust's grave and completely passing Balzac, eventually finding Moliére and Sarah Bernhardt --

"Are we actually _avoiding_ Wilde's grave?" I asked, tripping on something in the ground for the fifth time.

"I didn't want to bore you."

"Come on, look on the map. We're at the corner of Bernhardt and Isadora Duncan."

Stephen asked to make sure, and the person he asked rolled her eyes and pointed towards the back of Wilde's gigantic angel. I managed to stutter out something in French about their being a credit to the species, hoping sarcasm translated.

About ten people had formed a queue to leave kisses on the stone, and I reached into my pocket to pull out a tube. Stephen was rather moved by Wilde's disciples snogging the rock until he noticed my hand waving the lipstick. "Are you insane?" he hissed. "Do you know how much _disease_ has accumulated there? Also, I'm sure there are just as many piss stains on the stone as lipmarks."

A young woman had her lips just above the stone as she looked at Stephen, then shrugged and pressed against the stone anyway.

"That's right," I said. "When in Rome."

"You shut up," he replied. "If she gets herpes, she'll probably sue you for encouraging her."

"Would you _please_ ," said an elderly woman nearby, trying to do whatever it was people did at cemeteries besides snog modernist sculptures.

Once most of the people lingering around the grave had left, I slathered on Glazed Berry #43 and kissed the angel on the shoulder, hopefully high enough so it was tainted only by acid rain. Peer pressure being the wonder that it is, Stephen puckered up as well and left one adjacent to mine. We wiped our mouths on our sleeves and kept watch on the sculpture.

"Where did his friend get the money to build this monster?" I asked.

"His parents, I imagine," Stephen replied. "They were very rich, though he never was."

"There's something to think about. What if Charlie came home one day and asked for money to build his mentor-lover an extravagant tomb, with a bit of space in the back for his own ashes? After said mentor-lover was horribly disgraced and died a pauper."

"Something every father thinks about, I'm sure, especially when his child is four."

I looked at Stephen, then nudged him with my elbow. "Come on. This was supposed to be fun. Herpes-catching fun!"

"Would you build me a tomb like this?" When I raised my eyebrow in response, he continued. "Would you come to my conviction and tip your hat at me when everyone else was jeering and spitting at me? Visit me monthly? Take all my manuscripts and documents from my house? Buy back the copyrights of my works for my theoretical children? Make sure my hideous boyfriend doesn't destroy the beautiful letter I wrote him from prison?"

"Ask me a century ago," I replied. "You know. When you could be imprisoned for buggering someone outside your dorm room."

"Just makes you think," he said as if I hadn't spoken. "We write sketches for benefits, host them, raise money, but that's easy."

"Ha," I laughed dryly. "Please tell me that was a plea for more suffering in your life, just so you could prove yourself up to the task."

I had to swallow when he looked at me, because I'm sure daggers of loathing have never pushed quite so far into my whole being. Especially not when I was completely right and he was completely _stupid_.

"You know I would," I said. "I'd build you a crystal palace, and in the center would be you in your coffin, just like Lenin."

"In other words, a greenhouse with a coffin."

"Don't say I didn't try."

* * *

  
Saturday night, our last night, we stayed in the hotel and smoked cigars while watching awful French television. In the interest of full disclosure, we watched ourselves dubbed into French. (In choosing adjectives for that experience, I'm going to go with 'surreal' and 'wretched'.) Wellington was even louder in French than in English, and my face looked even stupider with a French voice coming out of it. Loads of fun for the whole family. All right, for us.

Then, I woke up, my mouth like an ashtray, and looked at my watch. Two-thirty. How long had I been asleep? Guiltily, I realized I had fallen asleep in Stephen's bed, but hoped he had been smart enough to just go into my room and take it.

He hadn't. No, there he was at the room's writing desk, the sound of the pen scratching away so that at first, I thought there was something mechanical wrong with... whatever mechanical things were in the room. No, it was only his pen moving fast enough across the paper to ignite it.

"Why aren't you asleep?" I asked. "You should have shoved me off, or gone to my room."

He started when I spoke and looked over his shoulder at me, appearing utterly baffled at my presence. I said his name and he nodded.

"Yes, well, I had so much to do, you see, couldn't very well _sleep_."

"It's a vacation."

He laughed and turned to continue writing. I yawned, stretched on the bed, got up and stretched some more, and then went over to the desk and hovered over his shoulder. "What are you writing? Something good, I hope?"

The question 'died on my lips'. You know that phrase, and you know what it feels like. When you know exactly what you want to say but something steals your attention, so you just trail off mid-sentence. There were those little words coming out of my mouth, trying to reach the open air, and I forgot them completely when I saw Stephen's makeshift workspace. He had taken the complimentary pad of hotel notepaper and ripped every page off, and then stacked them haphazardly on each other in bunches. I've described that badly, so let me trim it down to this: piles of fucking paper everywhere. Writing on all of them. Was he rewriting the Bible at this hour?

"Most people sleep at night, you know," I added after a moment or two of squinting and trying to read the scrawling.

"Yes, well, most people don't have my deadlines, do they?"

"Come on, what've you got that -- "

"Wait just a second." He finished a line, slapped the pen down, and began to count on his fingers. "Three magazine articles, an amusing _personalized_ press release to send out with my book, another one for that _other_ book that will _finally_ go to America, then there are a few songs in my head, one which you completely botched with your lack of libretting skills, and one I've just made up but will never, _ever_ be able to externalize because I am just fucking _broken_ at that sort of musical 'thing' -- "

"Well, one thing at a ti -- "

"Oh, believe me, Hugh! Believe me! This is _all_ one thing at a time. This is the 'solo-professional' corner, with little red urgent flags everywhere. There are also all those sketches we have to write and edit, except you can't pull three day writing binges anymore -- oh, and _Emma_ needs help, too."

"Emma? Really?"

"She's adapting something and I'm apparently her only friend with an English degree."

"Ah."

"Shall I go on? There's also my birthday in a week, my siblings being arseholes because I may have more money than there are people in Scotland but no significant other to even out their dinner parties, my parents being perfectly tolerable as usual, our agent never shutting up, oh. And Roger died."

"Who? Roger Moore? Daltrey?"

"No, a boy from school. NORCAT. One of the few I kept in touch with, so of course. AIDS. Right, which made me think maybe I shouldn't keep saying no to another _Hysteria_ , you know, as if I'm the only one who makes it work..."

"I think you're there already. Get it? A hysteria joke?" I cleared my throat and said, "That's an obscene amount of work. I mean really obscene."

"Yes, so go back to sleep and we can have a nice continental breakfast in a few hours before returning to civilisation."

I stood there for a moment, wondering if that was what I should do. It was hard talking Stephen down from anything, considering he only got up to such ridiculous heights through a lot of talking himself up. He was scratching at one of the sheets of paper again, and that seemed to speak for itself well enough.

"Sorry," I said. "You know I -- I can help, if you'd like. With anything... like what's Emma adapting? I can read it and... no, I'm rubbish at that. Or your columns, yes, I could write a special guest column! So you can catch up on the others."

"Hugh, did you forget your wife is a week overdue with your latest child?"

I didn't _forget_ , I only forgot to _mention_ it.

"So it's not a good week for anyone," I replied weakly. He shook his head as he wrote and wouldn't acknowledge me again. I laid myself down on his bed again and eventually drifted off to sleep, after 45 minutes of _not_ thinking about home.

* * *

  
Think of your closest friend. You must have those moments of very deep conversation with them locked far, far away into your brain because really, talking about the probability of one atom in your fingernail being an entire universe becomes absolute toss when you're a certain age. Or, if you're slightly more daring, locked away into that part of your brain is a drunken one night stand after too many shots of straight vodka.

Point is, that late night conversation about my hideous neglect of familial duties and his imminent death by stress was locked into that vault by the time I woke the next morning. Stephen was still at the desk, but now freshly showered and shaved, hair still wet, and I left the room as quietly as I could for my own. I returned an hour later, and he was back to himself -- cheerful, offering some last minute tourist attractions, another run through the Louvre, anything before our plane, which I respectfully declined. Breakfast conversation was kept to a shallow minimum, and our tight smiles to each other said the same thing: _Don't you dare say anything._

Hours of this, fucking _hours_ of polite conversation or none at all, chuckling at some wry airport observations. I loathed every minute of it. I slipped on a sleep mask when we boarded the plane and didn't speak to him the entire flight back, and I wanted to kill Stephen when I heard his fucking pen scratching away. I irrationally wanted to make some comment like, "You're not going to get a fucking medal for speed writing", but knew Stephen too well to believe that he wouldn't go out and have one made with his name and _1st Place in Speed Writing_ etched on it.

In London, our black cab stopped outside his building. I stayed inside as he got out and collected his suitcase. I saw the exact moment when he realised he would leave without saying goodbye, and the nanosecond he considered doing just that.

"Thank you," he said for the second time in forty-eight hours. He spoke from about five feet away, choosing not to come any closer. I remember these things because... it was strange. Like what he said next: "I did enjoy myself, and actually turning thirty-six won't be nearly as lovely." Who _says_ things rather than showing them?

"I'll make sure you drink enough to make you think so," I replied.

"Call me if anything happens."

"Likewise, please."

"Well, _my_ non-existent wife isn't on the brink of giving birth."

"Excellent point. I'll call."

* * *

  
Nine days later, I woke up in the middle of the night because of a banshee cry ringing in my ear, courtesy of Baby Girl Laurie, then 7 days old. I hate to say this, but she was still a novelty, and I was glad to attempt lulling her back to sleep with my badly lyricised impromptu lullabies.

At least, I was glad for the first fifteen minutes, at which point my wife drowsily suggested I go back to sleep and she take care of her. I got up and walked into the kitchen, vaguely remembering the walk around working for my sons.

Let it be known, females of the species, that you're just as difficult in infancy as you are for the rest of your lives.

An hour passed, and not even the music from an infomercial would get her to sleep. That's when I called Stephen.

"Hello?"

"Were you asleep?"

"No, no, of course not. Do I sound it?"

"No. I was just being polite and confirming your insomnia."

"And why aren't you asleep?"

"Girlie won't stop crying. Talk her down a few decibels, please, before the others join."

"Oh. Well. I suppose I can try."

"Damn right you will. Hold on."

I turned off the television and managed to balance baby and cordless phone as I manoeuvred myself so that I eventually ended up with a baby on my chest and the phone near her ear, though of course not right against it. Stephen cleared his throat and I settled in for some boredom-induced sleep.

"Right, go," I said.

"Night," he began. "A lady's bedchamber in Bulgaria, in a small town near the Dragoman Pass, late in November in the year 1885..."

"Sorry," I interrupted, "But what the _fuck_ is that?"

" _Arms and the Man_ ," he replied defensively. "G.B. Shaw."

I looked at my chest and the creaturette sucking on the mitten-like thing covering her fingers.

"Continue. Just don't do the soldier voices too gruffly."

"Of course. Now where was I?"

"The year 1885."

"In the year 1885. Through an open window with a little balcony a peak of the Balkans, wonderfully white and beautiful in the starlit snow..."

* * *

  
All right, please cooperate with me. Let's pretend life ended right there. A writer would later say, quite correctly in my experience, that the problem with stories is that if one keeps them going long enough, they always end in death or some other catastrophe. So let's pretend that somewhere, Stephen still reads Shaw to my nameless little girl, silently reassuring me that yes, we can mesh a friendship like ours with a normal family.

Because the story goes on, of course, with my wife running in thinking that our daughter had suffocated on my chest, Stephen hanging up the phone in a panic at the ensuing panic, driving over to make sure nothing had happened, and the two of us being scolded within an inch of our lives. Let's pretend everything of that moment wasn't completely undone and Stephen didn't try and kill himself eighteen months later; that we haven't been with our partners all this time, trying to see if they can ever replace the other, which so far they can't. Really, let's pretend that we've become adult enough to realise there doesn't have to _be_ an ultimatum. The fact is that it's wretchedly hot here, and the Balkans in 1885 is a lovely place to imagine.


End file.
